


Rekindled

by shinychimera, Yeomanrand



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Episode Related, F/M, Het
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-17
Updated: 2010-09-17
Packaged: 2017-10-11 22:35:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinychimera/pseuds/shinychimera, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeomanrand/pseuds/Yeomanrand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Janice Rand is used to getting most of her information from gossip; the official stuff goes across her desk, but most of the important news is word-of-mouth scuttlebutt. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Rekindled

**Author's Note:**

> Kirk and Rand meet once again on Risa, a few years after she stops serving on the _Enterprise_. Written for the [First Line](http://yeomanrand.livejournal.com/20839.html) prompt _The day that Jim Kirk finally gives in to his deep love/sexual attraction to Janice Rand._ Which isn't actually a first line, but I'll let it slide. ;)
> 
> Mentions the attempted rape in _The Enemy Within_

Janice Rand is used to getting most of her information from gossip; the official stuff goes across her desk, but most of the important news is word-of-mouth scuttlebutt. Still, the man sharing stories of her former shipmates would have her complete attention regardless. It's not what he's saying so much as the way amusement lights his hazel eyes, quirks the corners of his mouth, animates the hand that waves toward the crystal ceiling of the expensive little jazz club, shifting him on his barstool. He'd hate to hear how much the last five years of responsibility has changed his face, but she thinks it's a definite improvement over the last time she saw him. She takes a quick slug of her brandy to cover her sudden flush.

She'd always known it would come down to this. Even if she hadn't been able to continue serving on the  _Enterprise_ under Captain Kirk; because the difference between _knowing_ and _believing_ is a fine one indeed.

She hadn't cared -- still doesn't care -- whether he would have tried to rape her if the transporter hadn't scrambled his atoms and his conscience, because in the end the cause didn't matter. The attraction had been there, between them, before the attempt. And in the aftermath, talking to lieutenants Sulu and Uhura, she'd realized the inevitability of one or the other or both of them ending up compromised; completely unacceptable.

So she'd requested a transfer before either of them could go any further over the line. And he'd approved the transfer. Out of embarrassment, or wanting to do right by her -- only the result really mattered.

And now she is no longer his yeoman, and he is no longer her captain. The _Lexington_ has stopped at Risa for some well-deserved shore-leave. Apparently, so has the _Enterprise._

Neither of them are sober, but neither of them are drunk. They've been pretending they're just old friends who'd met by chance at a bar, ignoring all the unspoken things hanging between them. An easy pretense, really, and not so very far from the truth.

Until he reaches out and touches her shoulder, fingertips warm through the filmy silk of her most decidedly non-regulation sleeve. The gesture sends a flare of heat through the core of her, right down to her toes.

"Rand," he says, and there's a funny catch she recognizes in his throat, the same one she'd heard all those years ago on Ophiucus IV when she'd demanded he look at her legs. She reaches out and sets her hand over his lips.

"Don't, captain," she says, automatically, and then her hand falls away and they both laugh.

"Jim," he says.

"Jim," she repeats, then arches her eyebrows and points at her own chest. "Janice."

They share another laugh, bodies swaying closer. She reaches out and brushes his lips lightly with hers; the gesture catches him off guard and he pulls back just a little. He smells just a bit of ozone and the fine bourbon he's been drinking.

"Janice," he says, and the hesitation she hears, the uncertainty, is _real_ and unexpected and potently arousing, and she leans in and takes another hard fierce kiss. 

Three heartbeats in, he kisses back just as fiercely, and the feeling is a bonfire compared to the candle's heat of his first touch. She wonders when she closed her eyes. His hands slide from her shoulders down to her elbows, then seize her waist urgently, but she presses a hand on his ribcage, not quite between them. She could never have admitted she wanted him like this, before, but she's going to have him on _her_ terms or not at all. Finally he lets the soft pressure against his chest break the kiss so they can look at each other.

Desire blazes in his eyes, but different this time; not the wild rage demanding he take, possess, burn her down if she refuses him. More like sitting on a hearth, feeling the intense heat on her skin -- safe, steady, and searing all at once.

"If this happens," she says, "it happens only here, and it happens only for tonight. If that won't work for you, then..."

"Nothing happens." He nods, tongue tracing his lower lip. "You know --"

"I know," she says, cutting him off. "But I think by now we've both seen stranger things out there in the dark. If you weren't forgiven, I wouldn't be offering."

They consider each other for a moment, Jim's face flushed, his breathing uneven. Her chest rises and falls with her own rapid breaths, making her low-cut silk wrap shimmer in the crystalline light.

"Are you staying on-planet?" he finally asks, and she finds his proximity to shyness almost charming.

"I am," she answers. "So, yes, we _can_ go back to my place."

The statement gets more a sputter than a laugh, but amusement brightens the lust in his hazel eyes and she hops off the bar stool, hooking her elbow in his.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at [where_no_woman](http://community.livejournal.com/where_no_woman/164006.html) on LiveJournal.


End file.
